


Not Much

by yet_intrepid



Series: Hurt/Comfort December [13]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Angst, Christmas Presents, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Newspaper Routes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-27
Updated: 2014-12-27
Packaged: 2018-03-03 19:20:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2877389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yet_intrepid/pseuds/yet_intrepid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Out of bed, Sam.”</p>
<p>Sam squints. It’s Dad. But it’s also pitch-black in the room, nowhere near morning. Cold, too. Getting out of bed is way down there on the list of things he wants to do. It shouldn’t even be a consideration.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Much

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt thirteen: free space! I don't know what exactly to say the prompt on this is. Semi-sucky Christmases? Crappy dads? Being woken up in the middle of the night? Newspaper routes? (Some aspects of this fic also come more from personal experience than is exactly fun--aka the newspaper route bit.) 
> 
> This fic is a tie-in to prompt twelve, As If.

He thinks it’s another dream at first, one of those heavy vivid dreams that always come when he’s got a stuffy nose. He’s had a lot of them through his run of pneumonia, and they haven’t stopped now that he’s on the way out. But the shaking won’t stop, and Sam opens his eyes in the dark.

“Out of bed, Sam.”

Sam squints. It’s Dad. But it’s also pitch-black in the room, nowhere near morning. Cold, too. Getting out of bed is way down there on the list of things he wants to do. It shouldn’t even be a consideration.

“Sam.”

Dad’s getting impatient. Sam slides out of the covers, starts coughing when the cold air hits. He tries to stifle it.

“What’s going on?” he asks. The blurry numbers on the clock read 3:17.

“Need you to help me with the paper route. Come on, get dressed.”

He’d forgotten. Dad’s grabbed a job in between hunts, subbing for a newspaper carrier that got laid up somehow. But he’s been at it for a week now, and he never took Sam with him before.

Sam stumbles into yesterday’s clothes—jeans, socks, boots, shirts, jacket—and follows Dad out to the car. The stinging wind jolts him awake and he shivers as he goes around to climb in shotgun, but Dad shakes his head.

“Backseat,” he says. “I need you to roll, toss the papers over into the front so I can throw them.”

Sam opens the back door.

The smell of ink hits him hard despite his stuffed-up nose and he coughs again as he breathes it in through his throat. The cough’s harder this time, deeper. He clutches the roof of the car until he gets through it, and then he climbs in, squeezing himself to fit among the bundles.

“More in the trunk,” Dad says. “Couple bundles up here. Gonna be a long night.” He starts up the engine, shoves in a tape, and Sam wants to scream because if he has to be awake and working at this godforsaken hour then please, please, can Dad not blast classic rock to the high heavens?

Dad doesn’t. The tape comes on with a twangy voice, some old man, giving directions. “So the route starts on Rockwell Road, and you’ll throw to numbers thirty-five, thirty-seven, and forty-three on the left, and number forty on the right…”

Dad turns onto Rockwell Road and rolls down both front windows, reaching across to get the right one. “Start rolling, Sam,” he says. “Should be rubber bands back there.”

Sam searches automatically and finds a big plastic bag of them. He struggles with the yellow plastic strip that holds together the bundle beside him, finally getting his fingernail under the overlap and ripping it off, tearing away the sheet of brown paper that covers the headline.

Underneath the name of the newspaper, the words _Merry Christmas!_ stare up at him.

Sam stares back at them for a minute. Then he grabs the top newspaper in both hands, and he’ll be damned if it’s not the thickest one he’s ever seen, but he wrestles it into roundness and digs out a rubber band and squeezes the paper in. His hands hurt already, and wind is streaming into the car, but he tosses the paper over into the front seat. The tape keeps playing. Dad throws that paper and waits for another one. Sam fumbles.

“Hurry it up,” says Dad.

Sam fumbles some more and finishes rolling the second one. He isn’t good with his hands, he thinks desperately; Dean would be better at this the way he’s better at everything Dad wants them to do. But Dean’s wrist is sprained pretty bad right now and no, it’s better that it’s Sam. Even if Sam’s the one getting over pneumonia, with a cough that still rattles his sternum every time he breathes.

At the end of Rockwell Road, Dad rewinds the tape so it’s in the right spot and Sam gets one paper ahead of him, which isn’t much but if he can at least keep that up he’ll be okay. The twangy voice tells them to turn on Blackwater. Sam gets one more paper done while Dad turns and finds number twelve.

His hands are cold. They’re only on the second street and his hands are cold. Dad’s got gloves on; it won’t mess up the throwing. Sam knows if he wore gloves, he wouldn’t be able to roll fast enough. The rubber bands would get tangled up and the papers would probably tear.

Besides, he doesn’t even own gloves right now. His last pair went to some jerk at school two towns back. Kept him off Sam’s back for almost a week. Sometimes, peace is worth more than warmth.

“Don’t have all night, Sam,” says Dad. He’s waiting for a paper.

“Sorry sir,” Sam says, struggling with a rubber band.

The twangy voice on the tape goes on talking. Sam rolls desperately, as fast as he can, pleading with his ink-stained hands to move. Dad drives along with the windows down.

The smell of ink seems to get stronger as they go, or maybe Sam’s nose is getting less stuffy, but it makes him queasy. The wind rushing through doesn’t clear the air, either, just makes it cold, leaving him vividly aware of the absurd hour. He doesn’t want to be awake, but he is. Awake and sick and hungry and cold with no chance of getting back to bed for a long time. He has to blow his nose, too, and it’s not like Dad carries a convenient pack of tissues. Looks like he’s using the brown paper that came on top of the newspaper bundles.

He digs his fingernail under another yellow plastic strip and bursts it open so he can start rolling from the next bundle. The pile of rolled papers in the front seat is growing a little, at least. Dad hasn’t snapped at him in at least five minutes.

Then the tape tells them there’s no deliveries on this next road, and Dad speeds up. Wind rushes into the car and stabs down into Sam’s lungs. He starts to cough, bringing an elbow up to catch the germs and to hide the fact that his eyes are watering from the sheer force of it, let alone the pain spiking in his breastbone. His heart pounds.

By the time he straightens up again and reaches for the next paper, his hands are shaking. Dad doesn’t say a word. He just rewinds the tape, slowing down as he comes up on the next house with a subscription.

“Dad?” Sam says, hoarsely. “There a bottle of water in here somewhere?”

Dad shakes his head. “I cleared everything out before I loaded the papers in, first day. We can stop for something after we’re done.”

Sam shuts his eyes. Tries to moisten his dry mouth, tries to breathe, tries not to smell the ink. Tries not even to think about throwing up. Rolls more papers.

At last they’ve cleared all the bundles from the backseat, and Dad stops on the side of the road. Sam braces himself and climbs out to help drag the rest in from the trunk. He’s unsteady on his feet, tired as hell.

Dad tries to look at him. “Halfway there,” he says.

“Yes sir,” says Sam. It’s barely more than a whisper.

Dad frowns. “You gonna fall asleep?”

“No sir,” says Sam. He’s too cold and miserable for that.

“Good,” says Dad. “You gotta get used to this, you know. Odd hours, bad weather. It’s a hunter’s life.”

Sam swallows. Answering that seems at least as painful as coughing, so he just takes the last bundle of papers from the trunk and slides into the backseat with it. By the time Dad gets in, he’s already on his second paper.

The sky starts getting lighter. Sam coughs some more. Dad still doesn’t say anything. The tape keeps going: “That’ll be numbers thirteen, nineteen, and twenty-seven on the left, and then at the end of the road you’ll turn right onto Winthrop Lane. On Winthrop you throw every house except number six—no, five and six. Five only gets the Sunday…”

Sam wonders if Dad remembered to get them presents this year. He’s got something for Dean, with money he made doing odd jobs back before the pneumonia. Dean might have spent his Christmas money on Sam’s doctor visit.

It’s okay, Sam thinks. If he doesn’t get anything, he’ll be fine. They’ll just pretend it’s not a holiday. That’ll make it easier.

What isn’t fine is being dragged out to do Dad’s paper route with him.

It’s five-thirty by the time Sam rolls the last paper, hiding the _Merry Christmas_ inside and wrestling with the rubber band. It breaks, stinging against his freezing fingers, and he swears under his breath as he digs for another one. Then he flings the paper over into the front seat and huddles with the trash, the brown paper covers and the yellow plastic ties, while he waits for Dad to get through the last two roads.

They go straight back to the motel afterwards. Sam doesn’t remind Dad that he said they could stop for something on the way back. He just wants to get into bed. Maybe take a shower.

But Dad grabs the shower as soon as they get back in, so Sam just washes his ink-coated hands at the sink by the minifridge, dries them on his jacket, and starts taking his shoes off so he can get back in bed. He can’t help coughing, though, and Dean stirs.

“What’s going on?” he murmurs.

“Sorry,” Sam whispers.

Dean sits up. “Dude,” he says. “Where were you? You haven’t been up this early on Christmas since you were like five.”

“Yeah,” says Sam, “back when I believed in Santa. Believe me, I’d rather be asleep. Dad took me to do the paper route with him.”

“Ugh.” Dean pulls a face. “Well, hey, merry Christmas.”

“Right,” says Sam. “Same to you.” He pulls off his jacket and sits down on the bed, trying to warm up his hands.

“You’re not gonna shower me in gifts?” Dean gets up. “You suck, Sam.”

Sam digs up a smile. “Naw, I got you something. Just a sec.”

It’s in his duffel, wrapped in newspaper from a few days ago. He makes a face at the feel of it in his hands, but hands it over to Dean.

“Dude,” says Dean. “Star Wars Lego. Where the hell did you get this?”

“I know places,” Sam says. “Do you like it? I mean, I know you’re, like, a grownup now. But it’s Star Wars, right? It’s cool.”

“You kidding me?” Dean says. “It’s awesome. I mean, it’s a freaking snowspeeder. In Lego. Who wouldn’t want that? Man, my present for you sucks.”

Sam starts to assure him that he’s sure it doesn’t suck, that he wants it anyway, that definitely nothing else can be Star Wars Lego but it’s sure to be great, but then he starts coughing and Dean hurries to dig it out. When he hands it over, their hands touch, and Dean looks simultaneously worried and relieved. Sam reaches into the grocery store bag and pulls out something soft.

It’s gloves.

“It’s not much,” Dean is saying, “I’m sorry—”

“You took me to the doctor when Dad wouldn’t,” Sam interrupts. “Besides, it’s what I need.”

He puts them on, feels a sharp warm tingle start to spread through his fingers. Feels the ache and exhaustion and nausea of the night’s work fading into the background.

“Thanks, Dean,” he says.

“Okay, well, don’t leave them on too long,” Dean says. “We’ve gotta build this snowspeeder.”

Sam peels off his green knit gloves. The shower keeps running, and Dean’s grinning like a kid as he rips open the box.

Sam grins too. The rest of the day might not be much, but this right here, this stolen moment with the clatter of Legos, is Christmas enough to bring them through.


End file.
